Airports close across the Mideast as the Israel-Iran conflict shutters the region’s airspace

BEIRUT (AP) – After Israeli strikes landed near the hotel where he was staying in the Iranian province of Qom, Aimal Hussein desperately wanted to return home. But the 55-year-old Afghan businessman couldn’t find a way, with Iranian airspace completely shut down.

He fled to Tehran after the strike Sunday, but no taxi would take him to the border as the conflict between Iran and Israel intensified.

“Flights, markets, everything is closed, and I am living in the basement of a small hotel,” Hussein told The Associated Press by cellphone on Monday. “I am trying to get to the border by taxi, but they are hard to find, and no one is taking us.”

Israel launched a major attack Friday with strikes in the Iranian capital of Tehran and elsewhere, killing senior military officials, nuclear scientists, and destroying critical infrastructure. Among the targets was a nuclear enrichment facility about 18 miles from Qom. Iran has retaliated with hundreds of drones and missiles.

The dayslong attacks between the two bitter enemies have opened a new chapter in their turbulent recent history. Many in the region fear a wider conflict as they watch waves of attacks across their skies every night.

The conflict has forced most countries in the Middle East to close their airspace. Dozens of airports have stopped all flights or severely reduced operations, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded and others unable to flee the conflict or travel home.

“The domino effect here is massive,” said retired pilot and aviation safety expert John Cox, who said the disruptions will have a huge price tag.

“You’ve got thousands of passengers suddenly that are not where they’re supposed to be, crews that are not where they are supposed to be, airplanes that are not where they’re supposed to be,” he said.

Zvika Berg was on an El Al flight to Israel from New York when an unexpected message came from the pilot as they began their descent: “Sorry, we’ve been rerouted to Larnaca.” The 50-year-old Berg saw other Israel-bound El Al flights from Berlin and elsewhere landing at the airport in Cyprus. Now he’s waiting at a Larnaca hotel while speaking to his wife in Jerusalem. “I’m debating what to do,” Berg said.

Israel has closed its main international Ben Gurion Airport “until further notice,” leaving more than 50,000 Israeli travelers stranded abroad. The jets of the country’s three airlines have been moved to Larnaca.

In Israel, Mahala Finkleman was stuck in a Tel Aviv hotel after her Air Canada flight was canceled, trying to reassure her worried family back home while she shelters in the hotel’s underground bunker during waves of overnight Iranian attacks.

“We hear the booms. Sometimes there’s shaking,” she said. “The truth, I think it’s even scarier … to see from TV what happened above our heads while we were underneath in a bomb shelter.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office warned Israelis not to flee the country through any of the three crossings with Jordan and Egypt that are open to the Israeli public. Despite having diplomatic ties with Israel, the statement said those countries are considered a “high risk of threat” to Israeli travelers.

Iran on Friday suspended flights to and from the country’s main Khomeini International Airport on the outskirts of Tehran. Israel said Saturday that it bombed Mehrabad Airport in an early attack, a facility in Tehran for Iran’s air force and domestic commercial flights.

Arsalan Ahmed is one of thousands of Indian university students stuck in Iran, with no way out. The medical student and other students in Tehran are not leaving the hostels where they live, horrified by the attacks with no idea of when they’ll find safety.

“It is very scary what we watch on television,” Ahmed said. “But scarier are some of the deafening explosions.” Universities have helped relocate many students to safer places in Iran, but the Indian government has not yet issued an evacuation plan for them.

Though airspace is still partially open in Lebanon and Jordan, the situation is chaotic at airports, with many passengers stranded locally and abroad with delayed and canceled flights even as the busy summer tourism season begins. Many airlines have reduced flights or stopped them altogether, and authorities have closed airports overnight when attacks are at their most intense. Syria, under new leadership, had just renovated its battered airports and begun restoring diplomatic ties when the conflict began.

Neighboring Iraq’s airports have all closed due to its close proximity to Iran. Israel reportedly used Iraqi airspace, in part, to launch its strikes on Iran, while Iranian drones and missiles flying the other way have been downed over Iraq. Baghdad has reached a deal with Turkey that would allow Iraqis abroad to travel to Turkey – if they can afford it – and return home overland through their shared border.

Some Iraqis stranded in Iran opted to leave by land. College student Yahia al-Suraifi was studying in the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz, where Israel bombed the airport and an oil refinery over the weekend.

Al-Suraifi and dozens of other Iraqi students pooled together their money to pay taxi drivers to drive 200 miles (320 kilometers) overnight to the border with northern Iraq with drones and airstrikes around them.

“It looked like fireworks in the night sky,” al-Suraifi said. “I was very scared.”

By the time they reached the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, it was another 440 miles (710 kilometers) to get to his hometown of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq.

Back in Tehran, Hussein said the conflict brought back bitter memories of 20 years of war back home in Afghanistan.

“This is the second time I have been trapped in such a difficult war and situation,” he said, “once in Kabul and now in Iran.”